


Loafing Around

by Productive_Writings



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Baking, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27005041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Productive_Writings/pseuds/Productive_Writings
Summary: The devil hunting business has been slow lately, and Nero's attention turns to the kitchen.It would help if he knew what he was doing...
Relationships: Kyrie/Nero (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	Loafing Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hennatheantenna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hennatheantenna/gifts).



> Inspired by Hennatheantenna's [ adorable fanart of Nero.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/hennatheantenna/631728594902745089)

Nero was bored.

Whatever Dante and Vergil were doing down in hell, they were doing a good job of it because calls about demon attacks were becoming fewer and further between.

Nero had been taking this slow period as an opportunity to do odd jobs around the house, but even his list of all the little things that needed doing had run dry; hence the boredom.

He lifted the lid of his laptop, resorting to aimlessly traversing the internet in search of something to occupy his time. That was when he saw the frog bread. For whatever reason, 'frog bread' had started trending, and Nero couldn't for the life of him understand why someone would want their food to look like a slimy amphibian - but home baked bread did sound good; maybe he could try it himself.

The problem with that was Nero had never baked anything in his life.

Fortuna was a city founded on old-fashioned values, where the boys were taught the skills they would need to provide for the family and girls learned how to maintain the home. There had been occassions where he had been called upon to help in the kitchen by passing ingredients out of cupboards, or chopping vegetables, but other than that Nero's cooking knowledge only extended as far as preheating the oven and reading labels on packaging. Making something completely from scratch was just a bit above his level of expertise...

So he went to find Kyrie.

Nero found her folding clothes in the laundry room. Approaching Kyrie from behind, he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder before asking, "Can we make bread?", which earned a soft giggle from the auburn-haired woman.

"We already have bread in the kitchen if you're hungry." She told him.

"Well I want to make my own." Nero responded, "Think you can help me out so I don't burn down the whole house?"

"And what brought this on?" Kyrie asked, amused by his sudden interest in baking, "is devil slaying not fun anymore?"

"Not when there's no demons out to play it isn't. Come on, humor me, just this once." Nero coaxed.

Kyrie turned to face him, forcing Nero to loosen his hold on her, though his hands remained on her sides. "Okay then," she agreed, "just let me take this pile of laundry upstairs; you go to the kitchen, put on an apron and wash your hands, and I'll meet you there with a recipe."

"Thanks baby." He replied, leaving her with a brief kiss before departing.

-

Nero waited in the kitchen, hands cleaned and donning the brown apron that his girlfriend had insisted on buying him for any time he offered to help in the kitchen. Admittedly, it had seen far more time washing and drying dishes after food than its actual preparation, but today was different - today he was a man on a mission. It wasn't long before Kyrie joined him, tying the back of her own beige apron as she began giving directions of what ingredients he was going to need: strong white flour, salt, yeast and olive oil. He knew where to find those.

Then she said he needed a measuring jug for cold water.

Nero stared blankly at the expanse of cupboards. He knew the basics - plates, mugs, that sort of thing - but where was he going to find a measuring jug? He turned to Kyrie for help, and she smiled sweetly, finding his confusion adorable, then pointed him in the right direction.

Armed with his necessary ingredients and a jug of freshly measured water, Nero set about weighing out the dry ingredients; thankfully, the scales held pride of place on the counter top, so he didn't have any trouble finding those. Kyrie had been very clear that the salt and yeast weren't allowed to touch, so the salt went in to the mixing bowl first and the yeast last, putting a blockade of flour between the two. Then went 3 tablespoons of oil and most of the water.

"Now you need to mix all of the ingredients together with your hands until they combine to make a dough." Kyrie instructed. "I'll add the rest of the water for you while you're mixing so it doesn't get too messy."

"Wait - I have to put my hands in this?" Nero questioned, pulling a face.

"You've fought demons with your bare fists, Nero, I know you've touched far worse than wet dough." Kyrie teased. "It's not that bad, I promise."

He put his hands into the bowl and began to work the water into the dry ingredient mix, still making exaggerated protests at the sticky texture, making Kyrie laugh and almost spill the remaining water.

When the dough was the right consistency, Kyrie had Nero stop mixing and prepare an oiled surface to knead it on, as well as a bowl to sit it in once it was ready. There was a bit of debate on the size of the bowl, with Nero thinking the one Kyrie had directed him to use was far too big, and her assuring him that there was a reason for it.

Once the kneaded dough was in the bowl, Kyrie covered the top of it with cling film and sat it on the warm windowsill.

"Now what?" Nero asked.

"Now we give it some time for the yeast to make the bread rise," Kyrie explained, "so you'll have to find something else to occupy you for a couple of hours."

"I'm sure I can think of a thing or two..."

-

After almost two hours of colouring in with Carlo, Nero and Kyrie returned to the kitchen.

The bread had successfully risen, almost triple the size it had been when they left it, and Nero understood now why Kyrie had insisted on such a large bowl.

Kyrie floured the counter top and showed Nero how to knock the air out of the dough, folding it the first time for him before allowing her eager boyfriend to take over. Once the dough was nice and smooth, Nero followed Kyrie's instructions on how to shape the ball of dough into a loaf.

"Make sure to be gentle when you're rolling the dough out into shape," she told him, "you don't want to lose too much air or it will make the bread very dense."

"Do you want to do this part then?" Nero fretted, stopping his actions in shaping the bread. "I'm... not great at 'gentle'."

Kyrie gave him a soft, sympathetic smile. She placed her hands over his, and he expected her to remove them from the bread and take the loaf to shape herself, but instead she lightly pressed them down into the dough, showing him how to work the bread with the heels of his palms until he worked up the confidence to finish shaping it himself. "You do 'gentle' just fine." she reassured him. Only then did she actually take the loaf from his hands, placing it in a tray that she had lined with parchment whilst he was busy kneading, then dampening a tea towel and covering the bread over with it.

"Now we just need to give it another hour to prove before baking." She told Nero.

"Jeez, baking takes a long time." Nero complained, impatiently.

"It does, but it'll taste worth the wait. I promise."

-

It was just about time to pick the older boys up from school, so the final hour passed reasonably quickly.

Not long after they returned home, Kyrie had Nero preheat the oven (which, at last, was a job he was used to). She also made sure that he put a tray of water on the bottom shelf, 'to make steam to let the bread stretch out during ovenspring and help form a glossy, crisp crust', she told him.

Meanwhile, she removed the cloth from the risen dough and sprayed it lightly with a little water before giving it a light dusting of flour. She then passed a knife to Nero. "It just needs the finishing touch before we bake, now - four slashes across the top, if you'd like to do the honours."

The final cuts were made in the bread, and Nero put the tray in the oven. They spent the baking time sharing cleaning duties, mopping up all of the excess flour from kneading and getting the mixing bowls cleaned as the delicious smell of baking bread filled the kitchen.

A little over half an hour later, and Nero was proudly presenting his first ever home baked loaf of bread. It looked and smelled tempting enough that he would have tried a slice then and there, had Kyrie not insisted that it would be too hot for even his part-demon tongue, and they should leave it to cool first.

"I'll make soup for dinner, and we'll all have a slice of your loaf with it." Kyrie decided, giving Nero a kiss on the cheek for a job well done. "Would you mind chopping some vegetables for me?"

-

Baking certainly had been worth the wait.

Nero decided fresh bread tasted even better when you knew you'd made it yourself. It was the taste of accomplishment.

He had tried something new, and not only had the experience not been half bad, he'd proven that he wasn't half bad at it.

"Hey Kyrie?" He asked as he passed over the empty dishes. "Tomorrow, can you teach me how to make pasta?"


End file.
